With fish so fresh it’s a crime to do anything
other than sample it virginally. At first. But as the days and gluts roll on I
need a little help with fishy preserving tactics. Once again HFW to the rescue.
That man must be knighted. Sir Hugh. When you’re maxed out with ‘macs’ you need
to make River Cottage’s ‘gravadmax’. Then
there’s ‘rollmacs’ and hot-smoked mackerel. Then potted hot-smoked mackerel with
bog myrtle. Crispy fried mackerel for breakfast with a wedge of lemon. Crab
with samphire, crab with caviar on blinis, crab in a bisque. So one moment our
supper’s shoaling in the Sound of Jura, then up and out! - it’s snatched away
and carried over the sandy shore into the Lodge kitchen. This little fishy was
probably not much more than half a mile away half an hour ago. Now it’s swimming in our memories; of the wide-eyed
girl who caught her first fish beside a patiently guiding ghillie, of the cook who cut
her finger filleting it, of the other ghillie who suspiciously sniffed the
dillweed cure and sneezed and sneezed, and of all those who loved eating it. Snippets
of happy memories all because of that one very well respected fish. Caught,
cooked, eaten. Respected. Very basic. Very important. Very satisfying. It
really is astonishingly satisfying, and a real testament to a truly independent
living while being totally dependent on the forces of nature. Another big nod
to nature. In fact, an Elizabethan-style bow with an extra flurry of the feathered
cap.
But since, allegedly, you are what you eat and
none of us want to sprout fins or claws, there’s room on the menu for other
Island issue. We demolished a roast
rib of beef again from a farmer over on Islay. I said this last time, but it
really must be the tastiest beef I’ve come across, so far. And the Vikings
didn’t call Jura Deer Island for nothing. There are rather a lot of spectacular
stags ganging around like strung-out striplings just now. The heaving chest
freezer contains a good deal of them. I watch a few of them out of the kitchen
window while they strut grandly down to the shore and I stir the venison bolognaise
for a la’stag’ne. Yet another instance of how healthily close to food we have to be living on a small island like this. It’s a delicate
thing that has somehow been removed been by the mainstream of the mainland in a
hugely worryingly and unnatural way.
I gave those massive wild, massively wild beasts
a chance to get back at me later in the week. One afternoon I was snorkeling dreamily
around the shallows of the bay when I became conscious of loud splashing and clouding
of the water. A thunder shower, I thought. Sitting up, mask up, I found I
shared the sea with four stags. They thrashed dementedly through the water,
darting their impressively daggered headpieces into the salty sea as they
cantered, muscles rippling, tossing off water in testosterone frenzy. I might have been speared
like a flat fish! What a way to go though - snorkeling with stags. They were being mullered by
midges and cleg flies and, in no position to benefit from the likes of ‘Skin So
Soft’, this was their visibly dramatic way of dealing with the tiresome tiny
creatures.
Very early on the last morning, being the only
soul left in the lodge, I looked out to the bay for a last peep and saw my
first wild otter. It adroitly wove like a magic loom shuttle through the
silvery ripples of the lapping tide.
“I wasn't really hungry but I've eaten one of those in about thirty seconds. I don't even like meringue.” MH talking about my raspberry ripple meringues.